The Domesday Story

Connie Willis draws upon her understanding of the universalities of human nature to explore the ageless issues of evil, suffering, and the indomitable will of the human spirit. “A tour de force.”—The New York Times Book Review For Kivrin, preparing to travel back in time to study one of the deadliest eras in humanity’s history was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a woman traveling alone. For her instructors in the twenty-first century, it meant painstaking calculations and careful monitoring of the rendezvous location where Kivrin would be received. But a crisis strangely linking past and future strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to rescue her. In a time of superstition and fear, Kivrin—barely of age herself—finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope during one of history’s darkest hours.

Journeying back in time to the year 1320, twenty-first century Oxford woman Kivrin arrives in the past during the outbreak of a deadly epidemic.

A fundamental part of English heritage, the Domesday Book is unique in medieval history, recording an entire country and its inhabitants town by town, with over 12,500 entries. In this lavishly illustrated book, Elizabeth Hallam and Thomas Hinde examine the background to the nine-hundred-year-old document, setting the events of 1086 into the context of the medieval world. It is a remarkable tribute to English continuity that almost all of the Domesday settlements still exist in some form or another.

In 1086, a year of lightning strikes and storms, William the Conqueror launches the most ambitious project of his reign, sometimes called the Great Description of all England. He sends out Royal Commissioners to travel the realm for months on end, subjected to many dangers, collecting data for the survey that will become known to history as the Domesday Book. One night they come to the castle of Lord Robert and set in train a series of turbulent events. But who are they and what do they really want? These questions are made more urgent when two dead bodies turn up on Robert's land. One person holds the key, but he is an outlaw with his own desperate gamble to play. Intrigues of treachery, love and revenge are set against a backdrop of ordinary village life in the few months leading up to the making of the most famous book in English history.

In 1086, Domesday Book, perhaps the most remarkable historical document in existence, was compiled. This tremendous story of England and its people was made at the behest of the Norman king William the Conqueror. It was called Domesday, the day of judgement, because 'like the day of judgement, its decisions are unalterable'. In Search of the Roots of England is not only a study of the ancient manuscript but an attempt to analyse the world that Domesday Book so vividly portrayed. By skilful use of the Domesday record historian Michael Wood examines Norman society and the Anglo-Saxon, Roman, and even the Iron Age cultures that preceded it. 'Wood is a perceptive, entertaining and enthusiastic companion.' Sunday Times 'Wood is a lively storyteller.' Washington Post

Forced to become a child soldier, a sixteen-year-old Somali refugee must confront his painful past in this haunting, thrilling tale of loss and redemption by the bestselling author of City of Saints & Thieves. Now in paperback. When Abdi's family is kidnapped, he's forced to do the unthinkable: become a child soldier in the ruthless jihadi group Al Shabaab. To save the lives of those he loves and earn their freedom, Abdi agrees to be embedded as a spy within the jihadi group's ranks, sending dispatches on their plans to the Americans. But it's a dangerous role and if Abdi's duplicity is discovered, he will be killed. For weeks, Abdi trains with the jihadi group, witnessing atrocity after atrocity. But after being forced into a suicide bomber's vest, Abdi finally escapes to Sangui City, Kenya. Homeless and shell-shocked, Abdi is picked up for a petty theft, setting into motion a chain reaction that forces him to reckon with a past he's desperate to forget. In this riveting, unflinching tale of sacrifice and hope, critically-acclaimed author Natalie C. Anderson delivers another tour-de-force that will leave readers at the edge of their seats.

Focusing on the family of Ealdorman Leofwine, which retained power throughout an extraordinary period of political and dynastic upheaval, Stephen Baxter reassesses fundamental elements of late Anglo-Saxon government and society, offering a fresh interpretation of the structure of the late Anglo-Saxon polity and the origins of the Norman Conquest.

Nightmarish machines have driven humanity into the depths of space. The survivors are forced to adapt to a planet filled with monsters.

James Rollins, the New York Times bestselling master of nail-biting suspense and historical mystery, combines cutting-edge biotechnology with a centuries-old secret in an apocalyptic story that reveals where humankind is truly headed The Doomsday Key At Princeton University, a famed geneticist dies inside a biohazard lab. In Rome, a Vatican archaeologist is found dead in St. Peter's Basilica. In Africa, a U.S. senator's son is slain outside a Red Cross camp. The three murders on three continents bear a horrifying connection: all the victims are marked by a Druidic pagan cross burned into their fl esh. The bizarre murders thrust Commander Gray Pierce and Sigma Force into a race against time to solve a riddle going back centuries, to a ghastly crime against humanity hidden within a cryptic medieval codex. The fi rst clue is discovered inside a mummifi ed corpse buried in an English peat bog—a gruesome secret that threatens America and the world. Aided by two women from his past—one his exlover, the other his new partner—Gray must piece together the horrifying truth. But the revelations come at a high cost, and to save the future, Gray will have to sacrifi ce one of the women at his side. That alone might not be enough, as the true path to salvation is revealed in a dark prophecy of doom. Sigma Force confronts humankind's greatest threat in an adventure that races from the Roman Coliseum to the icy peaks of Norway, from the ruins of medieval abbeys to the lost tombs of Celtic kings. The ultimate nightmare is locked within a talisman buried by a dead saint—an ancient artifact known as the Doomsday Key.